Table 7.

Carcass characteristics of Nellore bulls finished on tropical pasture and fed a Bacillus-based probiotic

	Treatments*		SEM1	P – value2
	Control	Probiotic		Treatment
Hot carcass weight, kg	320.32	318.61	4.176	0.70
Dressing, %	52.65	53.88	0.751	0.30
Longissimus muscle area, cm2
Initial	58.94	60.95	2.293	0.49
Final	73.07	69.13	2.408	0.10
Gain	0.117	0.082	0.022	0.10
Subcutaneous fat thickness, mm
Initial	2.72	2.76	0.334	0.92
Final	6.27	6.02	0.322	0.59
Gain	0.031	0.029	0.0031	0.59
P8 fat thickness, mm
Initial	3.10	3.23	0.250	0.71
Final	7.49	6.47	0.347	0.05
Gain	0.039	0.029	0.0031	0.05
Marbling, %
Initial	3.91	4.18	0.152	0.22
Final	6.03	5.60	0.299	0.30

*CON; energy-protein supplement without any additive (n = 14) - Probiotic; energy-protein supplement containing 2 g of probiotic/animal per day (n = 14). The probiotic was composed of Bacillus licheniformis and Bacillus subtilis (6.4 × 10⁹ CFU/g). ¹Standard error of mean;² P-value; The significance level was set at P ≤ 0.05, and 0.05 < P ≤ 0.10 was considered a tendency